Lighting Dilemma: LED Cubes replacing Fog lights

[GIJoe2010]

Ok then, 1 relay per pod.

I need to just strip the OEM fog wiring at the end plug (where it attaches to the bulb) and then wire in the relay as previously shown in the diagram?

I assume it’s mainly for safety of the wiring, so the relay (and/or inline fuse) fries before cooking the system. Or is it overkill on a 20w flood pod?

 

[GIJoe2010]

I may have found a solution for running the spot LED pods and found it, of all places, at Harbor Freight. I was headed there anyway to spend some Christmas money and needed some wire shrink wrap and a wire stripper/crimper for this project and wandered all over the store till I happened upon a solution.

We all know they sell those mediocre Badlands winches, but they’re also selling LED cubes and light bars. They’re similarly priced to most lower end pods and bars but the wiring harness was what caught my eye.

As you can see in the pics it’s got your simple switch, but it has an (30 amp) inline fuse and “waterproof” (40 amp) relay and Deutche connectors. It also includes a splitter to run dual LED pods. For $25 (I used a 20% coupon so it was $20 and taxes) and you can get it locally, so it seems like a pretty good deal. I haven’t yet pulled it all outta the box and laid it all out, but while in-store I inspected what I could on the shelf and it looks like most (made in China) kits that you could get on Amazon or EBay from a myriad of manufacturers.

 

[Chief_6.7]

I may have found a solution for running the spot LED pods and found it, of all places, at Harbor Freight. I was headed there anyway to spend some Christmas money and needed some wire shrink wrap and a wire stripper/crimper for this project and wandered all over the store till I happened upon a solution.

We all know they sell those mediocre Badlands winches, but they’re also selling LED cubes and light bars. They’re similarly priced to most lower end pods and bars but the wiring harness was what caught my eye.

As you can see in the pics it’s got your simple switch, but it has an (30 amp) inline fuse and “waterproof” (40 amp) relay and Deutche connectors. It also includes a splitter to run dual LED pods. For $25 (I used a 20% coupon so it was $20 and taxes) and you can get it locally, so it seems like a pretty good deal. I haven’t yet pulled it all outta the box and laid it all out, but while in-store I inspected what I could on the shelf and it looks like most (made in China) kits that you could get on Amazon or EBay from a myriad of manufacturers.

View attachment 150364

View attachment 150365

So when is the install happening on these??? Lol

 

[GIJoe2010]

Not likely any time soon the way the weather looks. But it’ll give me some time to tinker with a few components I have to check out in my garage in preparation for installation.

 

[GIJoe2010]

I dug into the box and pulled everything out. The instructions are very self explanatory, they give you 3/5/7.5/10 amp fuses, the relay wiring (from light) is already setup with a direct plug to the relay itself, the wiring looks good except they used black Deutche connectors. I tried to connect them to the grey Deutche connectors on my LED pods and the would not click in, I even tried to pull up on the tab to see if I could give it some motivation but ended up busting the retaining tab. They are also wired backwards so I’ll have to take them apart and repin them anyways, I have spare Deutche connectors so I’m covered there. All in all, looks like a good product for $25.


This is the splitter, I busted one tab (right)

 

[GIJoe2010]

Additional pics

 

[GIJoe2010]

A PSA on the Harbor Freight wiring kit, the Deutche connectors are sub par.

A little disappointment, yet not really surprised. In my efforts of swapping out the Deutche connectors ON THE SPLITTER, I found that the (green) retaining caps (they’re usually orange, shoulda been a dead giveaway) were actually glued to the Deutche housing. Luckily, I just used some pliers, and carefully cracked the housing to extricate the wire ends and swapped them into proper (gray) Deutche connectors. The wiring was not damaged in the process.

Additionally, the HF Deutche connectors (black) work perfectly fine and latch positively to themselves. The issues I had was attaching the HF Deutche connectors on the splitter to my LED pod Deutche connectors as they are the “correct” type, grey bodies with orange retaining caps.

You get what you pay for, but it still worked out for me anyways.

The aftermath


Fixed


Crunchy Deutche housing


Retaining tab glued to Deutche housing

 

[Mechatricity]

YMMV and there's probably some variability with the electronics in the pods themselves, but neither running the pods directly from foglight power nor triggering relay(s) from the foglight power worked in my application. i'll copy pasta my post on this issue below, but ultimately what i ended up doing was not using any factory wiring and using a wireless RF switch stuck to the dash to control them, powered through a relay which is in turn powered by a keyed 12v source via an add-a-fuse in the fuse box. It has the advantage of allowing the pods to be controlled independently, but the disadvantage of not being able to use the stock foglight switch.

"I've gone several rounds with my LED pod foglight retrofit trying to supply clean power. The foglights are not monitored by the BCM with a bulb out strategy, so i first assumed i could use foglight power directly. This resulted in a very faint but noticeable erratic flickering from the LED pods. I assumed the foglights have some PWM control strategy and the LED pods didn't like that.

So for round two, i moved to a relay triggered from one of the foglight positive leads and the LEDs powered directly from the battery. Much to my surprise the flickering got even worse, although only when the truck was running. I started probing around with my multimeter and noticed that the + side of the foglight (my relay trigger) sees battery voltage (~12.3v or whatever) when key ON engine OFF, but as soon as i start the truck, the voltage on that leg drops to ~10v. This appears to be right at the lower limit of the trigger input voltage for the relay, resulting in the relay firing on and off as the voltage fluctuates around 10v. "

 

[GIJoe2010]

I’ve seen that, where you use a fuse tap for power when keyed on. I’ll definitely be using that for at least one set if not both if I can’t use the foglight switch/wiring to power the floods.